Barnegat Township

Barnegat Township is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey. It was incorporated on 10 March 1846 as "Union Township", and it was formerly a part of Monmouth County. It gets its name from Barnegat Bay and Barnegat Inlet, and its original name was "Barendegat", meaning "surf cove" in Dutch (given to the area by the Dutch explorers in 1614). The Lenape spent summers at the shore collecting and roasting clams for food over the winter, but European settlers arrived in 1720 and the first permanent homes were built in 1750. One of the last American Revolutionary War battles took place in 1782 near the Cedar Bridge Tavern. In 2016, Barnegat had a population of 22,288 people.